


Meant to Be

by TheFlashFic



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlashFic/pseuds/TheFlashFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes fate doesn't work fast enough. In those times, Cisco Ramon's gotta step in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shaloved30](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaloved30/gifts).



> For my beloved Sha.
> 
> Also I wrote this before 2x22, in some ephemeral time post-Zoom when no one's mourning and Westallen still aren't together? So AU now I guess, whatever.

Something had to be done. 

It was ridiculous the way everyone was tiptoeing around each other. It was uncomfortable, it was nerve-wracking. All Cisco could think about was the awful tension in the air after the singularity, before Barry kicked everyone out of the lab and decided to be a solo act for like half a frigging year. 

Not that it was the same kind of tension, but that comparison still made him lose sleep at night. 

Caitlin...he had almost given up trying to help her. She was dealing with a lot, he knew, but a lot of it was stuff he could understand. Facing up to possible darkness inside of you? He was an old hand at that these days, even if the suggestion that his fears were legit tended to make people laugh more than anything else. He even had his share of experience dealing with someone he cared about being secretly evil, and then openly evil. 

Granted he wasn’t about to put his relationship with the OG Harrison Wells on the same level as her relationship with Jay, but still. 

Any time he tried to help her, though, even just to talk or listen or whatever, she closed up like she always did. Last time she even gave him that ‘if you’re really my friend leave me alone and let me handle this in my own way’ line, which was kind of a motivation killer. 

Jesse and Harry were dealing with their own things - Jesse’s brush with speedforce and the so-far-unknown consequences, and Harry’s decision to remain on this earth for good instead of going back home when Cisco closed that last breach. (Though, come on, Cisco could kinda reopen it anytime he wanted to, that was a thing he could do. But Wellses gotta Wells, overdramatic-ass family.)

And then there was Barry and Iris. 

Good lord. 

Maybe they were lower on the scale of actual ‘problems’, because as far as Cisco could tell they didn’t have one? But they didn’t have...well, anything else, either. According to Cisco’s observations - and Barry’s random late-night WHAT DO I DO texts, they were totally head over heels for each other. Of course Barry always had been, but now Iris was actually feeling him, too. 

But nothing was actually happening. 

Like the ridiculous longing cow-eyed looks Barry constantly shot Iris were now going both ways, and that was about it. 

Unlike Caitlin’s problems, and the Wellses being smart and cold at each other, this was a problem that Cisco simply didn’t understand. Two incredibly hot people who were already completely devoted to each other were now in love on top of it, and...that was somehow an issue. 

Barry Allen was a frigging hero. An actual superpowered hero. He was goofy and funny and smart as hell, he was the first real actual non-coworker friend Cisco had ever had. And come on, he was hot, and kind, and still figuring things out but genuinely  _ trying,  _ which was a lot more than most people did. 

And Iris? Come on. Iris was like a celestial being, in the Biblical badass sword-in-hand kind of way. She was so gorgeous that looking at her head-on for too long kind of hurt, and she was just as big a hero as Barry. No superpowers, but that made the fact that she’d jump out between any oncoming bad guy and an innocent person all the more amazing. She was tough, and smart, and she cared about people and got so  _ disappointed  _ when they let her down, but loved them all the same. Iris was one of those people you’d move heaven and earth for. Not even for her approval, just for that warm smile and the ‘I knew you could do it’ kind of faith she had in people. 

Two people like that had every reason to be madly in love. They were the two greatest people in the world, they deserved each other. So what the hell was their problem? 

It made no sense. 

And like all things that made no sense to him, Cisco Ramon was going to take it apart and put it together until he knew how it worked. And, more importantly, knew how to fix it.

 

* * *

 

The invite had been unexpected, but Iris had accepted it happily. She liked Cisco, she liked caffeine, what the hell? Granted, they hadn’t hung out much outside of the lab, and rarely alone. Mostly at her dad’s house with everyone else around them. 

But he was great. Especially considering how melancholy everything felt around them. Iris tried to keep her spirits up no matter what was happening. She’d always been that way: swallow back the tears and wear a smile until it’s real. But that could wear on a person. 

And when it did, that person needed someone like Cisco Ramon around.

She didn’t think until she actually got to Jitters and spotted him already in line that maybe there was some ulterior motive to the invitation. Maybe the way he lit up when he saw her come in, waving enthusiastically and leaving the line to join her at the end of it. 

Just the way he looked at her, maybe. That was enough to make her suddenly wonder how much Cisco actually knew about her and Barry and their...whatever it was, and worry whether this was going to go somewhere awkward. 

Still, she greeted him with a smile and returned his easy hug. She did spend their few minutes in line mentally composing the best way to let him down as nicely as possible if the need arose. 

But they got their drinks, found a table, sat, and he gazed at her with those soft, deep brown eyes of his, and said, “So. You and Barry. What the hell?” 

And then there she was, actually talking about this with another human being. 

“It’s just strange, I guess.” Iris made the confession quietly, stirring her coffee needlessly to keep from having to look up. “Not even the part where him and me might be actual, literal  _ destiny  _ for each other. Just...the whole idea. Getting back into something, a relationship like that…” 

To her surprise, Cisco was a really good listener. He was so excitable and brimming over with a thousand references and ideas every other moment, this quiet interest was unexpected. 

“It wouldn’t just be dating, would it? If all these signs mean anything, then I can’t just like him and see what it turns into. It’s going to be...all of it. Wedding and, god,  _ kids  _ maybe. I don’t know if I can start something if I don’t feel ready for the  _ everything _ , you know?” 

Iris had accepted his coffee invite expecting to laugh a lot and get her mind off things. Instead there was this, talking out loud about things she spent every other moment trying to distract herself from. 

When he did speak again finally, it was with an unusual, slow thoughtfulness. “You know, I really liked Eddie. He was a nice guy.” 

Hearing Eddie’s name had finally stopped making her flinch and square her shoulders, prove to the world that she had survived his death. She only smiled sadly, and nodded acknowledgement that he was on her mind. 

“I know...just because I loved him and he died doesn’t mean I can’t ever love anybody again. I know he wants me to be happy. But.” She sighed. 

He just watched her, fingers wrapped around his mug, not even fidgeting. “But?” 

She held her breath and let it out in a rush. “I started dating him to get my mind off of Barry, when he was in the coma. I moved in with him to prove that Barry’s feelings for me didn’t just...just throw my entire world off balance. But I loved him. I did.” 

He nodded. 

And that was it, just nodded. 

Iris was used to people taking up her words and adding their own interpretation, giving her something easy to agree with so the conversation could move on. As much as she loved the men in her life, they were quick to try to guess what she was thinking, to tell her how she felt and whether it was right or why it was wrong. 

She swallowed. Silence was unnerving, the way her thoughts had no choice but to continue. She probably could have changed the subject and he wouldn’t have fought her on it, but. Instead she considered her words, she pieced her thoughts together even as she spoke them out loud for the first time. 

“If we’re destiny, me and Barry, then my feelings for Eddie never mattered. Fate or the  _ speedforce  _ or whatever it is that’s pulling the strings, it was never going to let me love anyone else for real, was it? If destiny is real then we weren’t. If I give in to that...it’s like I’m losing him all over again.” 

Cisco frowned, sitting back and studying her. 

As nice as he was being to give her space to finish her thoughts, it was starting to get unnerving. She sighed and gestured at him less than delicately. “Don’t you think so?” 

“If destiny’s a thing it doesn’t give a crap about what I think about it.” 

She raised her eyebrows and stayed quiet, waiting. He wasn’t the only one who could fish for more using the power of silence. 

Cisco huffed out a faint laugh, but shrugged. “Look, okay, let’s say there’s some bigger power at work here. And that power wants you and Barry to be together five-ever.”

“Oh god,” she muttered with a smile, rolling her eyes. 

“Well,” he went on, “that means destiny had to  _ make _ you and Barry in the first place. Which, okay, possible, if ever there were two people forged by the gods themselves, it’s you two beautiful bastards.” 

Iris laughed despite herself, feeling her cheeks warm.

He grinned. “So it was destiny that Joe and your mom hooked up, right? There’s no West-Allen without the West. Your parents, that was the same kind of predestined love thang, yes?”

She frowned. Cisco had no idea - at least not that she knew - how complicated Joe and Francine’s story was. But she shrugged. “I’ll play along.” 

“Okay. So let’s say Joe didn’t have this forever-alone thing going on, and he met someone new and fell crazy in love. Which, I’m not lying, I would totally pay to see.” 

“Me, too,” Iris agreed quietly. It made more sense to her now, why her dad never tried to date after Francine. But she still didn’t approve. If anyone deserved love, it was her father. 

“Right? But that love would still be legit, even if it wasn’t destiny doing it. Wouldn’t it? So maybe you just did things in a different order. You found your own love first, before you realized which one you were meant for. Doesn’t make Eddie less important. In fact, if destiny’s a thing then I doubt it’s gonna hook up one couple and then be hands off about everything else, so maybe Eddie was exactly the love you needed in order to become the person you are now, the one who’s meant to be with Barry.” 

She considered that. 

He sat back and drummed his hands against the table lightly. “Okay, let’s look at it another way. My family’s super Catholic, right?” 

Iris blinked, but nodded. “Okay.” 

“I was always the little science nerd who wasn’t cool with the unprovable presence of an all-powerful dad in the clouds. Used to tick my folks off, big time.  They had priests make house calls sometimes, put me in Sunday School and everything. And man, most of those people are really easily offended? Like damn. But there was this one visiting priest who was actually super cool when I bitched to him about all the usual stuff nobody can figure out. Like if God’s a thing how does so much shit still happen, you know? Is God all powerful, does he know everything that’s gonna happen, does it all happen as some plan or do we get to make our own choices?” 

It was interesting, watching Cisco talk. This wasn’t his normal shiny nerd-excitement, but there was still something really bright about him when he spoke so intently. Iris was caught by it, reminded a lot of Barry in all his gleaming enthusiasm.

He caught her staring, and his cheeks went pink. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. There’s a point, promise. Point being, what he said was that God knowing everything we’re gonna do ahead of time but people having free will all the same...that isn’t some contradiction. Just means that when we’re formed into little balls of soul or whatever, God can watch our futures like a movie, see what kind of screw-ups we’re about to unleash on the world, and give us the thumbs up all the same. Him knowing I was gonna order a latte doesn’t mean I never had a choice about getting black coffee. Just means that’s not what I was gonna choose today. If that makes sense? It probably doesn’t, I don’t even do the God thing. I don’t know why I talk.” 

Iris just smiled. “So you think if destiny is a thing, it’s the same way? There’s not some outside force saying me and Barry have to be together no matter what, just...it knew we were going to choose each other.” 

“Right! Doesn’t mean you were never gonna choose anyone else at any point. Me and this latte were totally meant to be today but I had an equally great americano here the other day. You know?” 

“And my love life is comparable to your coffee habits.” 

He shrugged. “I can only speak on what I know. Love ain’t my thang. Caffeine, I’m a pro. Besides, Eddie was a beautiful bastard himself, no way he was just a throwaway accident of fate.” 

She swallowed, but felt herself smiling. “He was, wasn’t he?” 

“Seriously? I’m not saying I was ever creeping on your territory, but I did some sighing over that dude. He was unfair. And you two together…” He rolled his eyes, big and exaggerated. 

Iris laughed. “Trust me, it was never all that perfect from the inside.” 

“What, toilet seat fights? I don’t know what the hell problems pretty people have in their relationships.” 

As she went into detail, telling him a few stories she hadn’t told...well, ever, she realized that she actually did feel a lot better about everything. This holding pattern her and Barry were stuck in, post-speedforce, post-confession, didn’t feel as heavy to her as it had. 

And Eddie. She hadn’t laughed when talking about him since he died. 

As the subject changed again somewhere into their third round of drinks, Cisco kept her spirits up by going on about some project at the lab, frequently breaking into astonishingly-accurate Harry Wells impressions that never failed to make her laugh. 

She started to think, watching him somewhere in the middle of those stories, that maybe there was another guy in the world who deserved a love of his own as much as her dad did. 

 

* * *

 

“Dude, what are you even doing here?” 

To his credit, Cisco only jumped a little bit. He wheeled around, apron tied at his waist, a giant spatula in his hand pointing out like a saber until he recognized Barry and sagged. “Jesus  _ krispies _ , Barry.” 

“Sorry.” Barry’s laugh didn’t do much to make him seem genuinely apologetic, probably, but hey. “So what’s up, Julia Child?” 

Cisco rolled his eyes and turned back to whatever he was doing. “That’s the only cook you could think of? There’s a whole generation of new, hip, awesome, mostly not-racist chefs out there, you old-ass man.”  

“Joe raised us never to watch celebrity chefs. He says if a recipe’s not three generations old it ain’t worth knowing.” Barry made his way over and looked into the setup Cisco was working with. “Also it’s ten-thirty on a Friday night, and for once there’s no catastrophe looming. Why are you even here? And why does this lab have an entire restaurant in it?” 

“Cafeteria. We had like six hundred employees before the accident, and Wells-slash-Thawne didn’t like people leaving for outside lunches. Did I set off some kind of alarm or something?” 

“Yup. I wired up some of the unused parts of the place, back when…” He faltered. He didn’t much like talking about that post-singularity silence in the empty lab. “That smells good, whatever it is.” 

Cisco beamed, stirring his huge meaty-smelling pot. “Give me like twenty minutes and you can try some.” 

“What is it?” 

“Wait, it’s ten-thirty and you’re here? Dude, it was a false alarm, everyone’s safe. Go party or something.” 

Barry hiked himself up on a long stainless steel countertop, watching him. “Because if there’s one thing we all know about Barry Allen, it’s: nonstop partier.” 

“Old man,” Cisco agreed with a fond roll of his eyes. 

Then he darted a look at Barry and spoke more deliberately. “I know you’ve got a way more interesting love life than you had a month ago, at least. At least you  _ should _ .” 

Barry opened his mouth to respond, but shut it and sighed. He dropped his head back against the whitewashed wall behind him. 

“Mmm hmm.” Cisco regarded him, then shook his head and went back to stirring his pot. 

It was starting to drive him nuts, the whole thing. 

He knew he loved Iris. She knew she loved him. (Right? Maybe? Liked a lot, at least. Wanted a future with, at least, and that was enough for a start.) And now they both knew how the other one felt as well. 

It was moving beyond that that was so hard for them. And he had no idea why. 

Everything seemed to settle into some kind of holding pattern before he even had time to address it. Iris confessed to wanting a future with Barry, but then there was no time to talk about it. Barry confessed that Iris was and would always be everything to him, and...they got stuck again. 

There was too much else to worry about. Like, all the time. It was too easy to say ‘when Zoom is gone’ or ‘once Caitlin is safe’ or ‘after the last breach closes’ or ‘once nobody is ever in danger again at all anywhere’ as a way of stalling himself. Now Zoom was gone, Caitlin was safe, the breach was closed. But new things came along every day. Safety was an illusion.

It didn’t help that Iris seemed to be on the same uncertain page. Sure, she shot him a few more openly speculative looks than she used to, and their teasing was way more on the outright-flirting side than it had ever been. But when they had dinner together, it was at Joe’s. When they went to sleep at night, it was in their own beds in separate homes. And neither of them seemed to know how to take a step in any other direction. 

He drew his legs up on the counter and crossed them under him, and twisted to face Cisco. “Okay, can I ask a hypothetical question?” 

Cisco laughed outright. “Dude. You better put the world’s biggest air quotes around ‘hypothetical’.”

Barry groaned. “I know, but.” 

“Alright, let me hit you with something sage instead.” 

“You?” But Barry dropped his hands to his knees and waited, only slightly slumped. 

Cisco cleared his throat, adjusting the apron around his waist. “‘ _ Having _ ,’” he said importantly, “‘is not so pleasing a thing as  _ wanting.  _ It’s not logical, but it’s often true.’ You know who said that?” 

Barry rolled his eyes, but held up a Vulcan salute.

Cisco returned it solemnly. “This is why I love you, Barry. But okay, here’s something you will never hear me say again, so listen up: Spock is full of shit.” 

He laughed, sucking in air in an attempt to look shocked. “I’m writing the fan club about this.” 

“Snitches do dishes.” 

Barry glanced over at the remains of Cisco’s experimental cooking whatever-the-hell, and shrugged. “Fair enough.” He jumped off the counter and started gathering dirty bowls and pans. And tubes and beakers, disturbingly. 

“Heh, I didn’t think that would work. Score. But I’m serious, okay. That’s some bitter old-people talk right there, and it’s crap. Sure, when you want something you can sit around and dream and sigh a lot and make it a perfect thing in your head. And once you get it, it’s probably gonna be way messier than whatever you wished and angsted so much about for _ literal frigging years _ , Barry,  _ Jesus _ .” 

He shook his head, stirring, seemingly ignoring Barry’s heatless glare on his back. “But if you’re really happy letting yourself have some fantasies but staying alone when you don’t have to, then you don’t want what you think you want.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barry uncurled a long hanging fixture at the sink that he vaguely recognized from the kitchen at Jitters the few times he snuck in to help Iris close faster. He experimentally sprayed a jet of water into the deep sink. “Whoa.” 

“It  _ means _ ...you either want some perfect, starry, Lisa-Frank-sticker kind of  _ loooove,  _ or you want to be with Iris even if it’s not everything you dreamed it might be. Which, dude. I’ve met Iris. You’re gonna get some Lisa Frank in there. You two are riding literal unicorns to the altar some day, don’t even front.” 

Barry snuck a look over at him, and smiled despite himself. “She’s pretty great, huh?” 

“Too great to be home alone on a Friday night when she’s supposedly got someone who cares about her.” 

His smile vanished. “It’s not…” He squirted a jet of water into a bowl and only sighed when it shot right out and plastered his chest with meaty water. “Yeah.” 

“Dude.” Cisco turned off the heat under his giant pot and put a lid over it. He grinned as he hiked himself right up on that same counter Barry had sat on and watched him. “This is gonna be hilarious.” 

Barry made a face at him, but worked on moderating his water jets. “It’s not as easy as it seems, that’s all.” 

“Why not?” At least Cisco realized he wasn’t talking about washing dishes.

“Because...it’s not?” 

“I guess transitioning from true-love-declarations into awkward-first-dates is a little backwards, yeah, but.” 

“I mean, what do I do? Ask her out to a movie? We’ve been going to weekend movies together since I was like thirteen. We eat dinner together all the time.” 

“Uh huh. And you’re gonna tell me that getting all fancy to meet her at some posh restaurant is gonna feel just like hanging out at Joe’s?”

Barry thought about that. “I don’t know. What if it’s not different enough? What do we even talk about that we haven’t always talked about?” 

“So talk about the same old stuff you always do, and then make out like crazy people. I think that’ll be different enough.” 

He wanted to roll his eyes, but the image shot through his brain like an electric shock and he felt his face heating up. 

Cisco laughed and slid off the counter, moving back to the pot. “Look, I don’t know anything about anything, but here’s what I’d do: call her, like  _ now _ , and offer to make up for her quiet Friday by giving her a great Saturday. Cliche as you want. Dinner, movie, whatever. Bring flowers, bring chocolate.” 

“I’m such an idiot about that kind of thing, though,” he heard himself whine. 

Cisco just grinned. “And you think that’s escaped her notice? She’s gonna take one look at your narrow ass in some work suit that shows two inches of ankle, holding wilty flowers, with that dumb Iris-grin on your face, and she’s gonna think, ‘yep, this is the idiot I chose’, and things are gonna be way more awesome than you will ever let yourself hope for.” 

Barry eyed the bowl full of greasy water and sighed, releasing that horrible water sprayer and giving up. “You really think it’s that easy?” 

“Man, what the hell do I know? You hungry?” 

“Constantly.” 

Cisco lofted a big stirring spoon steaming with what looked like plain ground beef. “Try a bite.” 

Barry approached, eyeing him, but leaned in and accepted a mouthful. He chewed, his eyes got wide. “Holy…” 

“Yeah?” 

“That tastes just like the burgers Joe makes when he barbecues. That’s like my number one favorite food.” 

“He told me when he gave up the recipe.” 

“He gave you…Joe West gave you one of the family recipes?”

Cisco beamed, bright and smug all at once. “When I told him what I wanted it for.” 

“What did you--”

“You still hungry?” 

Barry blinked, but took stock. “Not as much, no.” 

“Give it five minutes to start digesting, I bet you’ll be fine for a while. You’re looking at the next gen speedster feeding system. Protein bar two point oh. Best part is you can freeze it, put it in whatever you want. Spaghetti, tacos, burgers. Eat like a human being again. Couple of burgers made of this, you’re good all day.” 

“Are you serious?” Barry peered down into the pot. “Real hot food I don’t have to scarf down a thousand of?” 

“And this is just round one. I figured out a lot when I was translating from protein bars to this recipe, I’ll be able to sautee you up some chicken, fish, steak, whatever the hell you want. I mean it’s not perfect, I haven’t figured out how to make the calorie-infusion paste less  _ gooey _ , so right now I gotta cook everything in these big messy batches, but--” 

Barry drew back and looked at Cisco in amazement. “Dude. How long did this take you?” 

“Uh.” Cisco shrugged. “Been working on it for a few weeks, between other things. This is the first actual cooking attempt, so if it’s wrong at all you just have to _ oooff _ \--”

Barry plowed into him, sending the spoon clattering to the floor as he gripped him in a hug that threatened to lift his feet off the floor. “You’re a saint,” he breathed against Cisco’s hair. “I am so tired of eating all the time.”

“You’ve mentioned that once or twice,” Cisco said into his shirt, laughing and hugging him back easily. “Hey, dude. Want to return the favor?”

Barry drew back enough to peer at him. “At this point is that even possible? Man, our scorecard’s already so unbalanced.”

“Psht, scorecard.” Cisco waved that off with a roll of his eyes. “Look, Barry. This kinda thing, this is the high point of my week. Figuring things out, making something without worrying about someone getting killed violently if it doesn’t work...this is practically vacation for me. This is how a dude like me spends a weekend and feels great on Monday. You...you’ve got more going on. You’re gonna legit save people every damn day, weekend or not. You need something more, something good.” He sighed. “Ask Iris out. You deserve it, okay? You both want it, and there’s so many other things to be worried about.” 

“I know.” Barry squeezed Cisco’s arms lightly, and somehow it was easy to feel optimistic at that moment. “I’m being stupid.” 

“What’s stupid is that you’re scared of things that could kill you but you face them every day anyway. So not facing something that you’re scared might make you happy? That’s just  _ nonsense,  _ bro.” 

“Nonsense.” Barry laughed even as he agreed.    


“Straight-up poppycock, okay? Someone…” Cisco drew back, his grin facing into something more fragile. “Someone around here needs to be happy. We’ve all earned that, and you’ve got a shot at it. Take it.” 

Barry felt his own smile fade, but in the face of Cisco’s earnestness, he could only nod. 

Cisco clapped his arm, satisfied. “There’s a lot I don’t know anything about, dude, but one thing I know: you do not leave a woman like that waiting for long.”

 

* * *

Bae: If she says no I’m going to drink my weight in whiskey at your place. Might not get me drunk but it’ll be really ugly all the same. 

_ JUST ASK HER.  _

Bae: I will puke, one way or another. In your home. That’s a promise. 

_ … _

_ She didn’t say no, did she? _

Bae: WHAT DO I DO?????

_ Oh jesus.  _

_ Just get over here and we’ll...you’re at the door, aren’t you. You’re a wreck of a man, pal. I just want you to know that.  _

* * *

Ms. Bae: Sunday brunch? My treat?

_ Wow, really? Uh oh, wait, is this a drink-your-weight-in-mimosas brunch or a happy brunch? _

Ms. Bae: It was good. It was really good, Cisco. Just. I need to talk to someone. Now that it’s real. There’s a lot that is just starting to feel real to me, I guess.

_You’re on, Miss West._

* * *

 

Bae: ...did I ever say thank you? 

Ms. Bae: Hey, I just wanted to thank you for everything. It’s nice having someone to talk to.

* * *

  
  
The best thing about being a genius, Cisco couldn’t help but reflect as he shut off his phone and got back to work, was that he was right just all the time. Every moment. Gloriously, blessedly right. 


End file.
